Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Trade Law

Abstract

While public debate over trade policy focuses on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, another mammoth trade agreement is moving forward, more quietly, between two of the three largest economies in the world: The United States (US) and the European Union (EU). The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) aims to create the largest free trade zone in the world, encompassing two huge economies that together comprise nearly half of the world's gross domestic product.

The two sides hope that TTIP will generate more than 200 billion dollars per year in benefits for producers and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic. But the gains being sought in this agreement are not the traditional sort, involving reductions in classic tariffs, quotas, and other forms of protection. Rather, according to a recent study commissioned by the EU, up to eighty percent of the economic gains forecast for TTIP are expected to flow from transatlantic regulatory cooperation reducing production costs and non-tariff barriers to trade.

Share

COinS